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Abstract
Glenasmole valley lying in the hill country south of Tallaght on the borderlands of counties Dublin and Wicklow marks the northern boundary of the most extensive exposure of granite in Ireland and Britain. Throughout documented history the glen and the barony of Upper Cross in which it is situated have been part of the extensive church lands of thte archdiocese of Dublin. In 1754 Cobbe, then protestant archbishop of Dublin, leased the Glenasole property to his son Thomas. The Cobbe connection with the valley persisted until the lands were purchased by the tenant occupiers under the provisions of the Land Act of 1933. This chapter utilises Cobbe estate manuscripts, state valuations, census and map records, oral evidence from the people of the glen and a variety of other sources to document ownership and occupation of land, settlement and society in Glenasmole in the period 1700 to 1900. -from Author
Local history is the history of place, but, though place is central to its meaning, it is much more than this. Local historical research, in the first place, teases out the interplay of landscape, economy, culture and population to explain the shaping of the local community over time. Secondly, by asking ‘big questions about small places’, it prompts the reassessment of assumptions about developments over a wider spatial canvas.1 Thus, local history is about both people and place, and it provides a lens through which one can view the evolution of both the micro world of the locality and the wider world composed of many such localities. Modern Irish local history has been in the making since the mid-eighteenth century, the first significant landmark in its development being the work of the Physico-Historical Society. Established to investigate the roots of contemporary economic development and to combat Ireland’s image as a barbaric country, this society initiated a series of county studies, only four of which were published.2 Though primarily economic in focus, these surveys into ‘the ancient and present state’ of the counties in question effectively linked past with present, and prefigured the interdisciplinary approach of two centuries later by combining elements of geographical, economic, historical and political enquiry.3
The article traces the development of landscape studies in Ireland from the founding fathers, E.E. Evans (Belfast), whose work focused on the relic features of traditional settlement and field patterns to T. Jones-Hughes (Dublin), who used the nineteenth-century government surveys in order to explore the importance of landholding and a fragmented cultural identity for the formation of the landscape in Ireland. Both geographers created schools who continued their work: R. Buchanan, D. McCourt and B. Proudfoot in the North, and W.J. Smyth, S. Smith, P. Duffy, W. Nolan, K. Whelan and P. O'Connor in the Republic. -An important facet of Irish Historic settlement studies is the exploration of historical cartography, an area in which J. Andrews is the unrivalled expert. The reconstruction of past landscapes was attempted by R. Glasscock (Belfast) and T. Barry (Dublin) following the methodology of the English deserted settlement school, while C. Doherty, H.B. Clarke, A. Empey, B. Graham and A. Simms used documentary evidence for the reconstruction of the Gaelic, the Viking and Anglo-Norman settlements respectively. Part of this discourse is the complex question of continuity in Irish settlement history. The sixteenth and seventeenth century Plantation schemes have been explored by P. Robinson, R. Gillespie and M. McCarthy, while a big research project undertaken by B. Graham and L. Proudfoot has shed light on the importance of the landlords in urban and rural improvements. The article briefly points towards key texts for historic settlement studies in Ireland. The contribution of major projects are discussed, including the Irish Historic Towns Atlas and the County Histories. A widening of the research agenda has occurred with the conceptualisation of landscapes as representation of culture, an approach that is evident in N. Johnston's and Y. Whelan's work on the importance of monuments. Other areas which need more research are the landscape of Gaelic Ireland and the neglected late-medieval period as well as comparative studies, within Ireland and between Ireland and the rest of Europe, and last but not least environmental history. Reference is made to bodies of source material. The appendix provides information on the legislative tools for the future protection of the Irish landscape and it discusses the structural difficulties inherent in the Irish system.
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